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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Homemade Rust Remover and Stainless Steel Cleaner

A few weeks ago I stumbled across this article about using lime juice and salt to remove rust stains. I love how well Bar Keepers Friend cleaner removes rust and cleans my stainless steel pots and pans but I don't love the toxic ingredients. So I thought I'd give lime juice a go. I'm always up for a chance to smell a lime.

The All-Amazing Lime: Not Just a Fruit

First I tried lime juice on my knife which had some rust stains. See those three orange spots? (Sorry for the blurry pic) I squeezed lime juice on the rust spots and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I sprinkled some salt on it and scrubbed with a non-scratch scouring pad. It took more elbow grease then Bar Keepers Friend would take, but it worked!

BEFORE

AFTER

Then I used lime juice on my supposedly clean pots and pans which were looking pretty nasty. I rubbed a slice of lime on my pots, let it sit 10 minutes, sprinkled salt on them and then rubbed with a scouring pad. I didn't even have to use elbow grease this time. I'm all for saving my elbow grease.

BEFORE

AFTER

I was having so much fun by this point that I rubbed a slice of lime all over my stainless steel faucet and it came out all shiny! The citric acid in the lime dissolves the rust and build-up while the tiny salt granules help scrub it away. Now I've got one more reason to love limes.

p.s. lemons work too.

What else can you do with lovely limes? Do you have any other rust removing tips? Or stainless steel cleaning tips?

This is great! I think my knife looks just like the before picture you had. I'll have to try these. I would have never thought of this. Thanks for sharing on Saturday Show and Tell. I hope you'll be back this week.-Mackenziehttp://www.cheeriosandlattes.com

I used lime juice for the blue tint in my stainless pot...it's amazing...but in another site thay are saying not to use any bleach to clean stainless pot for any possible reaction....so my question is lime juice safe on stainless pot? does it anyhow related to the bleach thing thay are talking about?

Isopropyl alcohol also works great for stainless steel to leave a streak-free shine! I bet you could make a great cleaner with lime juice, alcohol, and some vinegar (mostly for lime-juice preservation reasons) !

Yes, I think it would help to let the lemon juice sit longer. The scouring pad also makes a difference. A Mr. Clean magic eraser got the build-up off my pans easier than my scouring pad, although my scouring pad still worked.